I'll Never be Safe
by K17L53
Summary: bracken's back...from inside prison and he's back to what he always does, tries to kill beckett. BUT this time, he gives her the choice of either leaving her life behind or having her loved ones get killed. **angst, but no one dies. one-shot most likely.


_A/N: right, well, i wrote this for english class, not enough words to write an original so i went with a fic. well i wrote a couple over a span of couple of days, which r in my notebook but i'll type em and probably post them as well. so after writing it, i realized it was...pretty good (it feels weird calling my writing good) and so i thought i'd post it. _

_so basically, i was given the first line **As she stopped to catch her breath, she looked back **and i had to continue. i swear my writing's better than what comes off in A/N._

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_**Disclaimer:**_ Not mine. Never gonna be. And that's for the best coz I love angst.

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As she stopped to catch her breath, she looked back at where she had left her old life behind. It wasn't the smartest thing to do but it was the only thing she could do given the circumstances. She had to keep them safe. Keep _him_ safe. And if that meant having to leave him…so be it. Kate Beckett had decided his life meant a lot more than her happiness. Especially if him getting killed was her fault. It wasn't really her fault, but trying to convince someone as stubborn as Kate Beckett was like trying to convince a wall.

They had built a life together. Sure it had been hard and they had to fight for it, but every moment they spent together made it worth it. And Rick Castle, her overly optimistic husband…thought they could make it through this time as well. So did Kate.

For years they had thought it was over. It _was_ over. Kate thought to herself. For almost four years she was at peace. The person that had ordered the hit on her mother, the man that had taken everything away from her was finally behind bars. "He can't hurt you anymore Kate." Castle had said.

He was wrong. He was so wrong.

Something happened last week. Something that hadn't happened in the last 4 years happened last week. Someone made an attempt on her life…again. Beckett hadn't known a small part missing from her car could ever result in something that big. Luckily enough, she got off with nothing more than a small scratch on her forehead. The uniforms on scene put it off as a system malfunction, she did too and so did Castle.

But what happened the next day was a bit less…subtle. _Well…it wasn't subtle at all._ Beckett thought to herself as she recalled the events of that day. Walking down the street and having someone pull out a gun at you is NOT something you consider to be subtle. It was a close call, the memory of that made a shiver run down her spine. If the guy with the gun had paid a bit more attention to realize he was standing too close, Beckett wouldn't be standing here right now. One swift move and his gun was in her hands and he was writhing on the ground at where she had kneed him.

But then came the letter. It was just another day, well as normal as it could've been considering the events earlier. Detective Beckett's team had dropped everything they were doing to follow-up on the shooter. She was a bit shaken up, getting shot wasn't a nice feeling and having experienced it once was more than enough. Castle had suggested going home and taking the day of from work, "Ryan and Esposito can take care of it, you don't have to stick around." The two detectives nodded in almost unison to what he said but Beckett was…too afraid to step outside this building, _if_ anywhere was safe right now, it was in a building full of cops. She might have seemed cool and composed at the time but on the inside she was anything but.

And the letter only made it worse. It was fairly short. A few words is all it took really.

"_You ruined my life and everything I had worked so hard for. Now it's my turn. You have till tomorrow morning to disappear or I start dropping your loved ones like flies._"

That night after getting home, she told Castle, wasn't planning on doing that but he deserved to know. He did his best to convince her that just like countless times before, "After all this is over, it'll just be another story to tell." Kate tried to reason with him saying she didn't want to but a life without him wasn't one she could even dare imagine. "It won't be any different if you leave." He had raised his voice for the first time in years.

Kate swallowed the lump in her throat and shaking her head, looked him in the eyes, "You'll be alive."

"How do I know you will be?" he had asked. "If the ex-senator can have someone try and kill you from inside prison now, what's to stop him from doing so once you're away from everyone?"

"He won't." She'd simply replied. "He wants me to suffer the same way I made him. Wants to take away everything I've built in the last few years." Fighting back the tears, she looked at the floor and muttered, "Killing me after I leave would be giving me the easy way out."

No matter what she said, there was no way Castle was going to let her do that. They would be okay; _she_ would be okay. If they stuck together, they would be okay, just like all those other times. As long as they were together…it would be okay.

So in the middle of the night, when he was asleep and the clock read 3:00am, Beckett left. With a note on Rick's nightstand letting him know her decision and how much she loved, and a small duffel bag with some of her belongings, she left.

"_I'll never be safe."_

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_A/N: So, i hope that wasn't too bad, coz it's the work of only an hour._


End file.
